http://www.new-ecopsychology.org/Contacts with living nature are essential for spiritual growth. Retreats to the forest or to other natural landscapes are one of the important ways of “exposing” oneself to God so that He can teach us more effectively. “In forests seek My instructions!” [40: Leaves of the Morya’s Garden. Call]. This is where one can expand oneself as a consciousness over the harmony of the environment — in contrast to “sitting” in the head chakras while living in the city, “feeding” oneself with information about people’s worldly desires and getting polluted by energies of their negative emotions.

Although cities, being big cultural centers, are also necessary: there are libraries, as well as other excellent opportunities for intellectual development. It is also easier to find like-minded people and partners on the spiritual Path there.

It is also beneficial to expose the body to sunlight, especially in the morning when the sunlight is particularly tender. This light exists not only on the material plane, but also penetrates other — the subtlest — dimensions inside our multidimensional organisms, reviving them, filling them with its pure power.

It is good for people who live at high latitudes to have an “artificial sun” — a quartz lamp — and to have sun-baths at home. This is also a wonderful remedy for various diseases. For example, exposure to ultra-violet radiation can easily cure catarrhal infections if performed right after appearing of their first symptoms. Light burns on the chest and the back made with a quartz lamp — where mustard plasters are usually applied — make a cough go away quickly.

Summer and autumn is the time for collecting and storing mushrooms and wild berries, which are very important components of pure nutrition.

Any time of the year meditations can be performed at special places of power — zones that have a significant energy impact on human beings. They are very different and can be used depending on this for healing oneself, for talking to God, for refining the consciousness, for increasing personal psychoenergetic power or for dissolving oneself in God and Merging with Him.

… Early spring morning is the time when nature confers on us the greatest harmony and bliss — when birds start singing even before dawn and the entire space around us gets saturated with the energy of their love. Attuning to their state allows us to get closer to God and constitutes attainment of a certain level of refinement of the consciousness.

Those who like to sleep until late have much fewer opportunities for spiritual advancement.

… Sunset time in spring also provides a wide variety of the subtlest impressions. During this time the singing of birds gets superimposed against the background of sublime SILENCE, HARMONY. The energy of the consciousness “spills” out from the body by itself and expands over the forest saturated with bliss, filling it and merging with it. In this way the consciousness becomes more mobile, more fluid and established in harmony and inner purity.

… But at any other time of the year a morning or an evening spent in the forest or by the water reminds us of the spring dawn or dusk times. They are very important for those who have learned to deeply feel the beauty of spring!

… Nature also consists of a multitude of living beings: animals, plants, which, as a rule, are more refined as a consciousness and enjoy incomparably greater inner peace than most people. An average modern person has to come a long way in order to attain their level of LOVE and PEACE and has a right to say that he or she started to develop spiritually.

Moreover, only in open natural landscapes — in contrast to “boxes” of city apartments and “corridors” of streets — is it possible to expand, to open wide the refined consciousness in order to literally grow its size.

… Let me repeat that emotions are states of the consciousness. And the consciousness is what we are. Depending on what states of the consciousness we experience — we can be closer or farther from the Creator.

God in the aspect of the Creator is the highest degree of refinement of the energy of the consciousness. Is it clear to us now, which direction we should move regarding development of our emotional sphere?

… Very few people have witnessed what is going on at a display ground of black-grouses in spring, when pre-dawn mist gets filled with loud ecstatic singing of these big, beautiful, and passionate birds. But the majority of those who have been there, were cutting short those beautiful songs of love with gunshots, pain, blood, and death… And enjoyed themselves with voluptuousness of sadist-murderers.

Raised in the tradition of having a “right” to kill animals, not having absolute inner taboo against inflicting any suffering on other living beings, atheists, as well as members of mass sects in our country, easily switch to mass killings of people…

… In spring evenings, after the sunset, when twilight is enveloping the forest, male woodcocks fly smoothly over glades, forest openings and lakeshores overgrown with shrubs. Their song, consisting of beautiful, soul-touching tender “grunting”, sends to us waves of love emotions of these lovely birds. In the shrubs, over which the males fly, sit female woodcocks — choosing the one who sings the best… Here — this one! She flashes to show herself to him… He rushes after her, seized by passion of bird’s love… And then they spend the night together. In the morning they fly apart, having become tired of each other… — to look for new adventures and new friends at the next sunset…

The mysterious beauty of big curlew’s song, wafting to our ears from the nearest swamp, “celestial bleat” of a snipe performing courtship ritual high in the sky with vibrating tail feathers, songs of robins and thrushes, all-night rumbling of frogs in puddles, flashing of spawning fish in the reeds, smell of a fire, swimming in a forest lake with the first rays of the sun and then — puffs of steam coming from wet and blissful naked bodies, exultation of souls, “exploding” from overflowing with joy of love for God and for every living creature — this is the emotional base that God wants us to have so that we could develop faster and more effectively in His direction!

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… Plants are living beings, too. Souls live in their bodies, like we do in ours. Usually — these are the souls of vegetative, i.e. “rudimentary”, stage of development. Although I know several humans-trees, which are quite developed, large, and strong human souls. But those people did not attain the required degree of Peace during their past incarnations — and God, in order to help them become better, embodied them into trees: so that they could calm down, become quiet after several hundred years of living as a plant.

It is easy to communicate with such people-trees on the emotional and even on the mental level. They get strongly “attached” to people who are capable of understanding them; they feel sad if no one visits them for a long time. When someone comes to see them — these plants meet them with joy, which is mixed with pain sometimes…

… What is peace then? Doing nothing? Living a lazy life? A sleepy inertia? No! Peace is the absence of emotional agitation and restless thoughts. It is possible to perform physical, mental or meditative work fast and for a long time while experiencing inner peace. It goes hand in hand with an energetic way of living. Maintaining inner peace allows one not to waste the energy in vain. Every kind of activity performed with inner peace as a background is done more efficiently. But what is most important is that it allows one to maintain contact with God, to be guided by Him and thus to avoid making many mistakes. In other words, it is conducive for positive evolution of man. But restlessness leads to increase of one’s isolation from God and to growth of the lower self. This is a drag on progress.

… All ordinary plants are capable of perceiving human emotions. This was proven by many scientists of various countries, which discovered changes of electric parameters of plants in response to emotions of people (see [7] for more information).

Once, long after I switched to the cruelty-free diet, I was working in a forestry on sanitary thinning-out of woods. In the beginning of my work, I thought about it as of something useful in general, and even enjoyed cutting “superfluous” trees — so that the rest of them had more space for living. But at some point, when I attained greater sensitivity, feeling the pain of those creatures, being cut down by my axe, became unbearable to me, and I quitted this job promptly.

Sure, we cannot live without eating plants. We inevitably use their bodies in construction and as firewood. And it does not make sense to wait until a tree grows old, falls down, and starts to decay; this is why it is “mature” trees that are cut down.

But one must not kill plants unnecessarily, or thrust a knife or an axe into a tree just for fun, or cut green branches without absolute necessity, or “mechanically” pluck and throw down leaves from trees, grass blades, or flowers. Disrespectful attitude toward food is equally inadmissible: since food was made of bodies of living beings that died for our sake. Throwing out food — even when one eats only plants — is also a sin, it is a sin of unnecessary killing.

And absolutely absurd from an ethical standpoint are those “ritual” killings of millions of fir-trees and pine-trees before Christmas and New Year, as well as picking flowers in order to put them in a vase and then admire their dying…

It is important that the reader does not start trying to remember now: this is allowed and that is — not… What is important is not “to learn by heart” certain “rules” but to realize and accept the ethical principles of compassion for the others’ pain and respect for others’ lives.

And those who do not understand or accept this — should not resent their own pain: through our pain God teaches us to understand the essence of the pain phenomenon: how unpleasant this sensation really is. In this way He teaches us to spare others and not to hurt them unnecessarily.

And even to a greater extent than to plants this principle of compassion must be applied to animals, since they can feel pain incomparably more acutely than plants.

The necessity of total adherence to the principle of compassion, in application to nutrition in particular, has been taught by God [6,11,13]. God is Love. If we want to get closer to God — we have to totally accept the principle of LOVE. But what is LOVE without COMPASSION? Only a parody of it?

Let us realize that however persistently “pastors” of various sects teach us the opposite we will not be able to make any progress in our spiritual development without total acceptance of the COMPASSION principle and resolved switching to killing-free diet (i.e. the one that excludes bodies of animals: mammals, birds, fish and so on) — on ethical rather than egotistic (for the sake of improving the personal health, for instance) motives!

… One can learn ethical lessons regarding plants not only in the field of nutrition. Tent pegs can be made not only out of green plants but also out of dry sticks that are still strong. And a fire can be made on the place of an old fire or on a trail, etc. — and not right on green plants.

Another thing — a fire must not be made on dry peat: huge areas of forest can get burned out, thousands of plants and many animals will die in the fire. Also, during dry periods a fire should not be made under tall spruces: thick perennial layer of fallen needles will smolder — the roots of the tree and surrounding plants will get burned as a result. One must be extremely careful during spring, when last-year’s grass catches fire very easily. When it happens, a lot of green plants, insects, birds’ nests with eggs or fledglings, as well as seeds get burned and die. And a great mass of the old grass that could serve as a natural fertilizer and enrich the soil is also wasted in the fire.

Also, it looks like a wildly immoral act when someone intentionally, for fun, sets this old grass on fire, which very often becomes the cause of destruction of haystacks, houses, and other constructions…

In some temples people sing, trying to convince God that He is “forbearing and merciful”… But would it not be better if they gave up this useless occupation and started living in accordance with God’s Principle of Love themselves? But this is impossible without Compassion for all people and every living creature, including ants, worms, plants, and many others…